


i thought it might sober me up

by espressohno



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, But Only a Little Bit - Freeform, Fix-It of Sorts, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Libraries, M/M, Slow Build, divorce court, jim is a ray of sunshine, kind of, leonard is stressed and sad, oh yeah and the longest sex scene in history it's literally four pages i'm sorry, this au is weird and possibly really ooc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-17
Updated: 2016-03-17
Packaged: 2018-05-27 05:42:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6272059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/espressohno/pseuds/espressohno
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Leonard ended up in the public library, slouched over a book about alcoholism.</em>
</p><p>  <em>To paint a more detailed picture, he hadn’t shaved in three days, hadn’t showered in four, and couldn’t remember the last time he ate something that didn’t come from a bottle or a vending machine.</em></p><p>  <em>“Trying to self diagnose?”</em></p><p>  <em>Leonard took as long as possible, partially for dramatic emphasis and partially because lifting his head up was proving very difficult, to glare at whatever asshole was trying to make a quip at him at nine fucking pm in the darkest corner of the library.</em></p><p>Star Trek au without Starfleet where Leonard is struggling through his divorce/custody battle and finds refuge in the public library (because that totally makes sense)<br/>oh, and Jim Kirk is also one of the librarians</p>
            </blockquote>





	i thought it might sober me up

**Author's Note:**

> there's a good chance that this fic is not at all cohesive because it was written gradually over the past two years so bear with me  
> i literally got the entire au out of a one-sentence quote from gatsby, if that's any indication of my writing process  
> (also this is another one of those things I wrote that was /supposed/ to be really short and then it became not short)  
> enjoy!

_ “I’ve been drunk for a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.” -Owl Eyes, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald _

 

***

 

Leonard was surprised he wasn’t dead by now. Not because he expected Jocelyn to have killed him in order to speed up the divorce process, but because last night marked the tenth consecutive evening of drinking until he passed out and taking a gross number of caffeine pills the next morning while he sat in offices and hearings and custody trials. He was certain that there must be some sort of glitch in the matrix that kept him living in this indefinite bureaucratic hell. 

Which is how, after his eleventh day of desperately trying not to lose his daughter for the next twelve years of her life, arguing over her like she was some sort of object, Leonard ended up in the public library, slouched over a book about alcoholism. 

To paint a more detailed picture, he hadn’t shaved in three days, hadn’t showered in four, and couldn’t remember the last time he ate something that didn’t come from a bottle or a vending machine. 

“Trying to self diagnose?”

Leonard took as long as possible, partially for dramatic emphasis and partially because lifting his head up was proving very difficult, to glare at whatever asshole was trying to make a quip at him at nine fucking pm in the darkest corner of the library. 

“What” He squinted at the light, which for some reason seemed to be originating from said asshole’s face, 

“the fuck” (or maybe there was a light right above his face)

“do you want from me.”

For some reason, although Leonard was sure he looked like an absolute nightmare, this kid was not the least bit taken aback by his profanity or his ten point scowl. The more he looked at him, the more his stupid sunshine face looked amused. 

Leonard tried to respond by giving the kid a once-over but it probably looked like he was checking him out. He wore some cookie-cutter business casual pairing of black slacks and a blue button-up, and there was a nametag on his shirt that read “Jim”. This didn’t stop Leonard from still referring to him as Asshole in his mind.

“Don’t make me repeat myself, kid.” He wasn’t even sure he was speaking English. In his head Leonard felt kinda like he was simultaneously drowning and being buried alive. Asshole exhaled in a way that sounded like it was also a laugh. His eyes were still scanning Leonard. 

“Did you just laugh at me? Something funny about a man who’s about to lose everything important in his life, asshole?”

“Sorry,” The asshole named Jim shook his head, “I came here to tell you the library’s about to close. I shouldn’t have made the joke in the first place.”

They stared at each other for a solid minute, Leonard attempting to communicate with his face that even if the building was on fire and the exit was ten feet away he wouldn’t even think about getting out of that chair. 

“Sorry.” Jim said again.

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop apologizing and leave me alone.”

“The library is closing in…” Jim checked his watch, “two minutes ago. I’m sorry, but you need to leave.”

Leonard sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands. Somehow his body was able to muster up enough strength to take him from the library to the bus stop and back to his hotel. This time he didn’t need alcohol to pass out, and he woke up the next morning fully clothed on the hotel carpet.

 

***

 

“You look like you’re doing better, although you’ve been sitting at this table for half an hour and you haven’t even opened a book.” Jim was carrying a stack of books that looked like they were in German. He leaned his hip against Leonard’s table. 

“Go away.” Leonard didn’t bother to lift his face from the table, so he settled for turning enough that he could glare at Jim The Asshole.

“If you want I can go find that alcoholism book for you again.” This time his voice was closer to trying to be helpful than snarky. 

“What I want is for you to let me mope in peace. Why is that so hard for you to understand?”

“Alright, last time it was necessary for me to convince you to leave. Library rules. This time I’m just trying to be friendly. Because you’re scaring everyone in the foreign language section right now. And for some reason I think you’re pretty cute.”

“Fuck you.”

Jim tilted his head to one side, looking more amused than anything at the fact that a living ball of hate and sadness was occupying a table in his library. Eventually he gave up and forfeited the staring contest. 

“Well, if you need help with a book, you know where to find me.”

Leonard scoffed. 

 

***

 

He didn’t even intend on visiting the library the next day, but somehow he ended up standing outside the entrance at 9:10. The hearing he’d just got out of had been rough. His face still felt hot and his eyes were red around the edges from two hours of stubbornly held-in tears. 

Atlanta nights were always humid, even when the wind picked up in the fall and the leaves started to turn. It was like having a fever. Leonard could feel sweat beading on his forehead and underneath his clothes, all the while the breeze made him want to pull his jacket tighter around himself. 

The bus wouldn’t come back for another twenty minutes or so. He sat down on the library steps and decided to wait it out instead of trusting his body to walk any sort of distance. 

A few people passed by on the sidewalk: dog walkers, young type-a’s still talking on their cellphones, sleepy families on their way home. A man was walking to the apartments across the street, carrying a little girl as she slept with her head on his shoulder and her tiny arms wrapped around his neck. 

There was hardly any reason it would make him think of Joanna. The girls looked nothing alike, and Joanna never was able to sleep that easy when he carried her inside after a long day, but seeing them hurt all the same. Leonard didn’t even care about the house or the brand new washer-dryer or Jocelyn’s lofty insurance she got from her father’s military service; all he wanted was to be able to see Joanna at least once in awhile. 

He wiped the tears from his eyes stubbornly. He heard the door open and tried to mentally prepare himself for yet another run-in with that Jim guy. 

To Leonard’s surprise, it wasn’t Jim. A woman stopped on the step next to him. He glanced down at her red high heels and wished for a second that he could put them on and click his heels and just fucking go home. 

“What’s your name?” She asked. Leonard looked up and was relieved that her face carried only a fraction of Jim’s cheeriness. She seemed concerned, mostly, especially since the employees at the library no doubt recognized him by now as The Alcoholic who Keeps Loitering in Corners and Doesn’t Own A Razor. 

“McCoy. Leonard McCoy.”

She sat down next to him. 

“I’m Christine. I recognize you.”

“I’m sure.”

“Do you need help, Leonard?” She tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear and leaned forward, forcing him to keep up eye contact. Leonard sighed. 

“No. Well, not really.”

“Okay.” Christine nodded, “I run the library most days. You’re welcome to come here whenever you like, no matter what Jim seems to be telling you. Just let me know if you need anything.” 

She stood up and made it to the bottom step before turning back around. 

“Or if you need me to tell Jim to leave you alone.”

Leonard let out a pathetic almost-laugh. He wasn’t sure which of the two library employees he’d met this week was worse: the over-cheerful Jim who seemed to be looking for windows to flirt with him, or genuinely concerned Christine who made him feel infinitely more like he’d lost control of his life. Somehow he couldn’t find it in him to tell Christine that he wanted Jim to leave him alone, because maybe somewhere deep down he didn’t mind being bothered. 

When he got back to his hotel room he thought about Jim again and then drank a bottle of wine and swore off of any potential for human connection. Even friendships were messy and someone ended up hurting in the end and Leonard ended up wondering if he was some sort of relational anomaly that made everything involving other people ten times harder. 

If he saw Jim again, he would tell him to go away, and that would be that. 

 

***

 

Like fucking clockwork, Jim showed up at his table ten minutes after Leonard sat down. Court got out much earlier today, because of some reason (that Leonard wasn’t paying attention to) but most likely because everyone in the building was tired of the two of them. He thought about getting dinner, but food wasn’t worth the risk of running into Jocelyn downtown, so he defaulted to the library again. It had become some sort of safe space. 

“You’re here early.” Jim actually sat down this time. He was holding two styrofoam cups. Leonard’s mind finally supplied  _ coffee _ and he couldn’t find it in him to turn Jim away this time. Jim smiled at the lack of protests or  _ fuck off _ s or  _ fuck you _ s and slid one of the cups in front of him. 

Leonard downed half of it and then almost choked.

“There’s so much milk and sugar in this you could use it as a goddamn coffee creamer.”

Jim smiled even bigger, and damn it, it almost made Leonard feel better. Almost. 

“You live in the city?” Jim asked before taking a sip from his coffee, raising his very-well-groomed eyebrows halfway up his forehead. Leonard sighed and dragged a hand down his face. He thought for a minute about whether or not he really wanted to tell this guy anything about his life. 

“I have a house about a half an hour north.”

“Suburbs?” 

“Yeah.”

His hands were wrapped around the styrofoam cup as if he somehow needed any more warmth than he already had. Jim practically emanated warmth, the way he sat on the edge of his seat, looking so interested in Leonard that he would probably be sitting in his lap if not for the table between them. Leonard hadn’t felt so completely watched in his life and frankly it was starting to creep him out. 

“I wouldn’t have pegged you for the suburban type.”

“Do you spend all of your work hours analyzing whoever sets foot in here? Because that sounds like a waste of my tax dollars.”

Jim laughed and hid his face behind his coffee again. 

“I’m not going to be living there much longer anyway. I think I’ll get an apartment closer to my work.” Leonard wondered if bringing up his mess of a divorce would get Jim to go away. Unfortunately it didn’t seem very likely the way things were going. He drank the rest of his coffee and tried not to grimace at the sugar that hadn’t fully dissolved at the bottom. 

“Where do you work?” 

“Are you really going to sit here and make small talk with me?”

Jim shot him a flat look. 

“Fine.” He set his coffee down, “Then tell me why you keep showing up here hungover. You don’t even have a library card.”

Leonard groaned. 

“I have nowhere else to go, alright? My wife is alternating between taking everything from me in court and running into me all over the damn city.”

Neither of them looked at each other for a moment, Leonard focusing on the corner of the table and Jim looking at a row of books behind him. Finally Jim tilted his head to the side and looked back at him. 

“Divorce court. I should clarify.”

Jim nodded. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Save it with all your goddamn sorrys.”

“Sorry.” He slowly started to smile. Leonard looked away, crossing his arms and hiding the fact that Jim kept making him want to smile, too. He could see Jim getting up from the table in his peripheral vision. He picked up the empty cups and stood for a second until Leonard glanced up at him again. 

“See you tomorrow, Leonard.” Jim gave him a styrofoam-cup-wave and started walking towards the front desk. 

“Like hell you will.” Leonard called after him. Jim’s laughter echoed through the shelves. He left a sort of aftertaste in Leonard’s mood, like the traces of sugar from the coffee that never quite left his tongue. 

He went back to the hotel and stood in the shower for half an hour before deciding that he really had no choice but to come back tomorrow. 

 

***

 

“When was the last time you ate?” Jim was waiting on the steps for him, looking like he was ready to go somewhere even though Leonard was under the impression that he always worked until close. 

“I had a bag of chili-cheese fritos sometime between Jocelyn fake-crying in front of her lawyer and Joanna real-crying in front of everyone until she had to be taken to a cry room, because apparently most public buildings have cry rooms these days.”

Jim had raised an eyebrow at the sudden excess of information coming out of Leonard’s mouth. 

“Cry rooms would actually be pretty useful in most public settings.” He speculated. Leonard wondered how long was customary to carry on this conversation before he could appropriately ask Jim what the fuck his deal is. 

“Come on.” Jim said, motioning his head towards the street. 

“What in god’s name-”

“I’m not letting you sit in my library another day looking like you’ve had your soul sucked out. We’re getting real food.”

“Like hell we are.” Leonard made for the library doors and Jim grabbed his arm to stop him.

“Stop saying that. Come on and let me show you the southern hospitality that your tax dollars are going towards.”

Jim grinned at him like he always did and Leonard huffed and allowed himself to be pulled towards the street. 

“You aren’t even from the south.”

“Very astute.” said Jim, who for some reason was still gripping Leonard’s arm like he might try to run away, “I’m from Iowa.”

“‘There no midwest hospitality?”

Jim shook his head, pleased that Leonard was playing along more than usual. 

“We  _ do _ have midwest racism, midwest sexism, midwest homophobia, you name it.”

“So you came to the south?” 

“Not intentionally. Turns out it’s not so bad being gay in Atlanta, though.” 

“Uh huh?” 

“Uh huh.” Jim repeated, mimicking Leonard’s voice a little bit. They crossed the street and he ushered them inside what looked like a sports bar. It was noisy and all of the television sets on the walls made the light fall into weird patterns of blue-tinted and green-tinted table tops. The host led them to a booth illuminated by a dying lightbulb and a commercial for pickup trucks. 

“Real food, huh?” Leonard skimmed through the menu, which gave him the option of ten different hamburgers or a few dozen kinds of hot wings. He wasn’t  _ not _ hungry, at least. 

“I figured you don’t like me enough to go somewhere quiet where we’re forced to stare at each other.” Jim shrugged and opened his menu. 

Leonard felt hurt by that, somehow, but he remembered that all of their interactions up to this point had been innocent on Jim’s end and completely unsavory on his. 

“I’m sorry that you think I don’t like you.” It felt a little less uncomfortable saying it than it did thinking it, but not by much. 

“Does that mean you  _ do  _ like me?”

“Don’t push it, kid.” Leonard smirked and went back to his menu, glancing up to see Jim biting his lip to keep from saying any more as he read through the restaurant’s heinous list of condiments. 

Their food came in a disconcertingly short amount of time after they ordered, and somewhere among their snarky conversation and laughing until his body ached while Jim’s face turned bright red from too much hot sauce, Leonard hadn’t thought about Jocelyn at all. 

Jim managed to avoid being nosy about whatever hell Leonard was going through until they were outside again. They walked to the bus station. Leonard was silent, watching above him for glimpses of the pink and orange sunset in between buildings. It was something Joanna had conditioned him into doing. Every evening she spent the hour between dinner and bedtime sitting at the window, waiting for the sky to change color. Leonard sat with her when he could, if he didn’t have a night shift at the hospital to hurry to. She loved the pink, but especially the orange. 

_ “Pink and orange are the prettiest colors in the world.” _ She would say in her little toddler accent. 

Leonard hadn’t realized he had stopped in front of a gap in the buildings until Jim snapped him out of it. 

“Take a picture. It’ll last longer.”

Leonard shot him a look and kept walking. Jim caught up quickly. 

“Hey, how’s the, uh, thing? The divorce thing?”

“She’s taking the whole damn planet. All I’m gonna be left with is my bones.”

“That’s not true.” Jim sat down next to him at the station. “I’m sure you’ll still have your muscles. And your skin. And probably a few organs.”

“A few?” Leonard looked sideways at Jim. 

“Three or four. Maybe five if you’re lucky. I’m an expert on the divorce-leads-to-loss-of-biomass phenomenon.”

“You’re an idiot is what you are.” 

Jim scoffed. 

“Thanks, Bones.” 

Leonard squinted at him for a second. Jim was hunched over, staring at his feet as one of them tapped nervously on the sidewalk. Something didn’t really fit about all of this.

“Jim, what are you doing?”

“Waiting with you until the bus gets here.” He said, as if it was the only and most obvious answer. 

“No, I mean, why do you keep talking to me?”

“I could ask you the same question.”

“You couldn’t. Because you aren’t some asshole who smells like hotel wine coolers and pushes away anyone who tries to be friendly.”

“You’re not pushing me away.”

“I was.”

Jim sat up to look him in the eye. 

“Did you know that the library is the only government-owned organization in Atlanta that hires ex-cons?”

Leonard didn’t really know what to say. He felt like it would be mean to turn away from Jim, like an unspoken rejection, but he really wasn’t a fan of direct eye contact in any capacity. He suffered through it, hoping his expression was some fraction of open and accepting. 

It turned out to be Jim who looked away first. He watched the street with what looked more like wistfulness than sadness. 

“I spent the last two months of my parole sitting in the library, at the table in between Foreign Language and Instructional Audiobooks. Christine was the first friend I made on the outside.”

“She offered you the job?” Leonard asked, afraid that anything he might say would be the wrong thing to say. Jim just smiled. 

“Yeah. That’s why I first came up to you. I guess I thought you needed a friend.”

The bus showed up a few minutes after that. Leonard stood up, trying to offer Jim whatever shadow of a smile he could muster. 

“See you tomorrow?” He asked, one foot already stepping inside the bus. Jim looked up at him with relief, eyes bright under the fluorescent bus stop lights.

“Of course. See you tomorrow.” 

Jim was still on the bench when Leonard sat down next to the window. He waved as it started to drive away, still effortlessly cheerful, and Leonard held his hand up in response. 

Every day Jim became more interesting than annoying. Here was a man who probably had an even shittier past than Leonard, but instead of becoming a grouch and a workaholic and all-around emotionally stunted, he was overflowing with light and kindness. Why couldn’t Leonard have let go of his inhibitions like that?

He pushed the tacky hotel chair in front of the minibar that night and went to bed sober, thoughts bouncing back and forth from Jocelyn to Joanna to Jim. 

 

***

 

Leonard made the trip from the courthouse to the library and it felt like every step took more energy than the last. It turned out to be his last day in divorce court. He’d have to start searching for an apartment tomorrow and move all of his things out of the house by the end of the week. By the time they finalized separation of the assets Leonard was completely checked out, staring at the clutter on his lawyer’s desk and trying to think of what the hell he would say to Joanna when he saw her,  _ if _ he saw her, for the last time before she turned eighteen. 

In all honesty he would have rather gone straight back to his hotel than all the way to the library again, but he couldn’t stand the idea of making yet another person upset. He’d made it the whole day of gritting his teeth and looking like he was managing; he could probably stomach another hour or so. 

Jim was pretty much waiting for him. He was leaning against Leonard’s usual table, scrolling through something on his phone with a kind of concentration that was charming until Leonard remembered that this man was an ex-con. The reality of that hadn’t actually sank in until a few hours later, and Leonard sat up in bed and almost asked aloud  _ what the hell could he have done?  _

It couldn’t have been anything remotely malicious. Jim saw Leonard coming and his entire face lit up. Leonard knew he should have at least smiled a little bit in response but he really couldn’t bring himself to it. 

“Hey you.” Jim grinned, “I wasn’t sure if you were actually going to show up.”

“Yeah, me neither.” Leonard mumbled. He fell heavily into one of the chairs and resisted the urge to slam his head against the table as well. Jim tiptoed around him, literally and figuratively. 

“Should I ask how court went?”

“No.” 

“Alright.” Jim looked at his watch. He clearly wanted to stay but continued to pretend that work was a priority to him for some reason. “Do you need anything?” 

Leonard thought about it, rubbed his face with his hand and sank lower into the chair. 

“I need to find an apartment.” He offered uselessly. It was the only personal detail he could come up with other than  _ I need to shave _ and  _ I need to scream for about twenty minutes _ . 

Jim looked at Leonard and squinted. He crossed his arms, wearing the same baby blue shirt Leonard had met him in, but he hadn’t noticed before the hints of ink above his elbows. It seemed like the more Leonard noticed about Jim the less he started to make sense. 

“I mean, I guess I could help you with that but it’s not really part of my job. I figured you would ask for something more along the lines of coffee or a cry room or a book.”

Leonard glared at Jim through the corner of his eye. Jim smiled. 

“One of these days you’re going to let me find you a book.”

“I doubt they make books about winning custody cases that already closed.” Leonard’s voice betrayed him in the end, breaking halfway through and immediately filling his eyes with the tears he had been successfully holding back all week. 

Jim’s face fell. He looked around at the other people in the library. 

“Here, come with me.”

He reached out his hand and Leonard brushed it off, but he stood up all the same, following Jim through the library like a shadow. They walked upstairs and passed shelves and computer desks and supply closets until they were standing in front of a room marked  _ Employees Only.  _ Jim swiped his badge over the security box on the doorframe and led the way inside. 

It wasn’t a breakroom so much as it was a half-finished office. There were a few desks to one side and stacks of chairs and tables on the other. Leonard noticed a backpack sitting next to the room’s only computer, a couple film posters hung on the wall and a mini-fridge plugged in on the floor next to a power outlet. 

“This your office?” He asked.

“More or less. I wanna show you something.”

“I don’t like surprises.”

Leonard pulled up a chair to Jim’s desk anyway, staring a little too deeply into the eyes of Keir Dullea from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Jim turned on the computer to what looked like a few pages of html programming. He started typing as fast as he was talking. 

“It’s not really a surprise so much as I need to talk at someone until I have this figured out.”

“So you just want me to sit here and do nothing?”

Jim looked up from the screen for a second. 

“Pretty much.”

Leonard suddenly noticed he was wearing a pair of boxy, black-framed glasses, but he couldn’t remember seeing Jim put them on. He sat back in the chair and listened to Jim explaining his program at about a million words per minute. After a while he caught on to the fact that he was trying to make an updated version of the library’s online database, but everything past that was lost. Leonard stared at the screen as Jim scrolled back and forth and added text and removed text and shifted it around. He watched the way Jim worked, the way he looked at the program like it was his native language. Jim seemed to fit in almost everywhere, from the quiet library tables to the crowded sports bar, but here it was like he was in his element. 

At one point Leonard realized that Jim hadn’t really brought him up here for any other reason than to have him around while he worked. Jim would probably come up with some random throwaway excuse like  _ I figured it could distract you _ but Leonard wasn’t an idiot. Funny enough, he didn’t really mind either. 

He didn’t notice that Jim had stopped talking until he looked away from the computer screen and saw Jim staring at him. 

“You didn’t just ask me a question did you.” 

“I just asked if I was boring you.” Jim pushed his glasses up his nose. 

“Oh, no, not at all.” Leonard lied, “I like to watch you...do your thing. It’s interesting.” 

The second part wasn’t a lie. Jim smiled and turned back to the screen. 

They sat in Jim’s office for a while longer, Leonard slouching in his chair and watching as Jim typed away, occasionally stopping to explain something with gestures and smiles and sunshine. There was a knock on the door and he noticed that it was already 9:00. 

He recognized Christine Chapel standing in the doorway. She looked as non-threatening as Jim and the rest of the library staff, business casual and friendly smiles, the only evidence of being tired hanging under her eyes and the corners of her mouth. 

“There’s a cart of returns with your name on it, Jim.” She said, and then, “Hello again, Leonard.”

“Evening.” He replied, and Jim looked between the two of them like it was hilarious to him. 

“I’m heading home.”

“Alright. See you tomorrow.” Jim smiled lazily and leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head. Leonard watched the way he moved when he stood up, when he shut down his computer and zipped up his backpack and walked to the door. He seemed as comfortable as if he were alone, as if he had already accepted Leonard’s company into his daily routine. 

“You coming?” 

Leonard nodded and followed him out. Later that night he would lay in bed and wonder why he stuck around to watch Jim sort books and ramble on about libraries and websites and programming as if he knew Leonard wasn’t really listening. 

Jim seemed to linger in his mind after they parted. He stayed there from the library to the hotel, on the bus and in front the lobby vending machine. Thinking about Jim had become a selfish way to escape thinking about the rest of his life, and Leonard knew it was dangerous and he knew it was going to blow up in his face, but he didn’t care. He flopped onto the rough hotel sheets and went to sleep still thinking about Jim Kirk. 

 

***

 

He had to stop going to the library after that, because he woke up the next morning and was met with a thousand responsibilities to deal with and only the weekend left before he ran out of vacation days at the hospital. 

The breakfast line in the hotel had nothing left but Lucky Charms and 1% milk, so Leonard went through about three bowls before stepping into the humid parking lot and calling Jocelyn. He had no fight left in him anymore; he spoke quietly and calmly into the phone and leaned against the wall next to a concierge who was making her way through half a pack of menthols. 

She agreed to take Joanna out for the day so he could come back to the house and, in her words,  _ get all of your shit out so I can forget we used to live together _ . 

The concierge offered him a cigarette when he hung up.  Leonard politely declined. 

 

***

 

Leonard resented how good it felt to go home. Walking inside made him want to revert back to his old life, hanging his jacket at the door and kicking off his shoes in the foyer--like Jocelyn always yelled at him for--and scooping Joanna into his arms as she ran downstairs to meet him. But the house was empty, and even though it looked exactly as he had left it two weeks ago, everything felt slightly out of place. 

He paced from room to room, throwing shit in cardboard boxes and giving them unhelpful labels with a sharpie that went dull in an hour thanks to his crushing grip. Everything was packed carelessly out of order, as if Leonard couldn’t seem to stay in the same room long enough before something pulled him into the next. He dragged his hand across the shelves of books that he would need to be loading into boxes eventually, scraped his feet across the stained carpet, continued to wander through the house in a state of dissociation. 

The last year, hell, the last two years of his marriage were miserable. He knew it was the right thing for all three of them that they separate, but he couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t going to miss this house and this life that he had just been kicked out of, officially, with the government’s help. 

Once everything was sufficiently thrown into boxes and taped shut a few times over, Leonard decided to make things worse for himself and went up to Joanna’s room while he waited for his ride. 

They had painted the walls together, or, more realistically, Leonard painted while Joanna and Jocelyn sat on the floor, watching and laughing as he managed to get paint all over the place. 

Joanna was little then, barely four years old, too little to understand that her parents didn’t like to be alone without her, too little to notice the harsh whispers that were exchanged outside of her bedroom door. They had started seeing a marriage counselor that year. 

Shrink after shrink had failed to reconcile the fact that the two of them just didn’t work. 

Leonard sat down on Joanna’s kid-sized bed, a sigh escaping his body as he did so. He committed the entire room to memory. He read the books she had stacked on her bedside table, the ones he always would read when he tucked her in. He stood up and smoothed out the floral duvet, righted the family of stuffed animals sitting against her pillows. He rested a palm against the light green wall, tried to calm his mind to a simple mantra of  _ breathe. Breathe. Remember.  _

Joanna would be in this room again tonight, and the next day, probably until she graduated high school and went off to college. Georgia Tech, maybe, Ole Miss if she wanted to be like her daddy. Leonard choked out a laugh, because how would she know about Leonard’s alma mater if they were going to be apart for the next twelve years? How would she know anything about him? The only contact she would be getting with her father would be from her six-year old memories, memories that will fade and fade until they start to feel like pieces of dreams she had as a child, until she stopped asking for Leonard at bedtime, until she stopped drawing her family portraits in threes. 

Leonard pressed his forehead against the wall. Another sound escaped his throat, threatening to spill over into streams of angry tears. He heard his coworker’s truck pulling up outside, listened to it park and shut off in the driveway. 

His phone rang. 

Leonard pushed himself off of the wall, turned off the lights in Joanna’s room and shut the door. 

He didn’t cry. 

 

***

 

As the universe would have it, Leonard had no choice but to check out of the hotel and return to work within the same day. He was lucky enough to have an actual office in the hospital where he worked. He had only had it since his promotion to medical office manager a few months ago. His staff took one look at him Monday morning and, thankfully, proceeded to ask no questions about how his “vacation” went, and why it seemed like he was sleeping in his office now, and why there were stacks of moving boxes practically filling the room. He spent the time between his shifts scrolling through real estate websites and having useless phone conversations with overpriced realtors. He scheduled about a dozen apartment tours anyway. 

On Thursday, Leonard was about three cups of watery hospital coffee into the morning and twenty pages deep into hospital paperwork when there was a knock on the door. 

Gaila, one of the receptionists who usually worked in the lobby, stood in the doorway nervously. That was how they all looked at him, now, like he was two seconds away from either falling apart or tearing someone else apart. Leonard didn’t like it, but then again, he didn’t much like himself, so he couldn’t blame them.

“Someone is here looking for you. He says you have an overdue book at the library.” She wrinkled her nose at the words, because out loud it must have sounded like a very useless reason to bother a man like Leonard McCoy. “Sorry,” she blurted out--Leonard must have been making a face--“I can send him away or ask for a message or something.”

“Send him in.” Leonard tried to smile, he really did. Gaila, from the looks of it, tried not to run away the second she got the chance. 

Once the door closed Leonard sighed loudly and scrubbed his face with his hands. He was, arguably, in even worse shape than the last time Jim saw him. He hoped to god it was any librarian other than Jim, but he knew it was in vain. 

The door opened and shut quietly. Leonard could all but feel Jim Kirk’s goddamn smile and he hadn’t even opened his eyes. 

“I guess this is what happens when neither of us say ‘see you tomorrow’.” Jim’s voice was as happy, as witty and bright as usual, but Leonard could feel the gentleness in it. He wanted to stand up and punch Jim in the face. 

“I’ve been busy.”

Leonard finally opened his eyes, dropped his hands from his face and looked up at Jim. Jim was standing in the middle of the room, in the middle of his stacks of moving boxes, looking casual in every sense of the word. He was wearing a dark grey t-shirt and faded blue jeans and sneakers. For the first time, Leonard could see the tattoos covering Jim’s upper arms, symbols and designs that all probably meant something. It felt oddly intimate that Jim walked into his office with bits of his past exposed like this, as if he didn’t care at all if Leonard looked at them, or even asked about them. 

Leonard guessed that he didn’t have work today, wanted to groan at the idea that Jim had showed up to Leonard’s office on his day off to  _ check up on him _ . 

“I don’t need you to check up on me.” Leonard spat out. It was mean. He knew it was mean. Jim didn’t leave, though. He sat down in the chair in front of Leonard’s desk. 

“You don’t have to lie to me, Leonard.” Jim’s voice started to almost rival his in aggression. His eyes were cold as he stared into Leonard’s.  _ Stop pushing me away _ . 

Leonard looked down at his desk, at the supply contracts and schedules and letters of resignation he had been sorting through all morning. He didn’t want to work through his pain as much as he didn’t want to sort through it with Jim. It seemed like he had no choice regarding the latter, anyway. He slid the paper to the side of his desk. 

“What’s your schedule for today?” Jim asked, casual again. 

“My shift ends at 5:00, and then I have a couple apartment tours with some realtor, I can’t remember their name.”

“Great.” He smiled, “I’ll go with you.”

“Like hell you will.” Leonard muttered, suddenly finding it difficult to look at Jim, or at anything. He stared at a spot between the desk and Jim’s grey shirt and the backdrop of cardboard boxes until his vision started to blur. 

“Leonard.” Jim leaned forward, demanding that Leonard look up, listen to him, “Stop it.”

Leonard had never seen, never expected this side of Jim. He was no less earnest than he was during all his attempts to care for Leonard, to distract him and make him laugh and keep him eating, but he was also angry. He had no right to be angry, not in the way Leonard had the right to be. 

They sized each other up, with their eyes as well as their bodies, until both of them were standing on either side of Leonard’s desk. 

“I don’t need this. I don’t need you here.” Leonard felt an ugly sort of pride in the steadiness of his voice, “I’m fine.”

Jim didn’t need to point out that all of what Leonard had just said was a lie. 

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” Leonard almost yelled.

It was subtle, but Jim’s face fell a little bit at that, at everything Leonard had said. He closed his eyes, turned his head away for a moment.

“I know you’re angry,” Jim said quietly before looking back at Leonard from the corner of his eye, “but it’s really fucking shitty of you to take it out on me.”

“I’m not the one trying to march in here and give out life counseling. You of all people-”

“ _ Me _ of all people?” Jim’s voice cut through the air, “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Jim knew what it was supposed to mean. Leonard felt guilt burning in his cheeks immediately, but it was done now, he couldn’t take it back. It would be juvenile to apologize seconds after he said it, to acknowledge his misplaced anger after he rejected it to Jim’s face. Jim stood there for a few seconds more, his fists clenching at his sides. He turned to leave.

Leonard wanted to call after him, to grab onto his wrist and say that he was sorry, for what he had said, for who he was, for always targeting Jim with his anger, even after they had become friends, but he was frozen. He watched Jim walk nonchalantly to the door. Jim paused with his hand on the doorknob. 

“I was wrong about you.” He said, turning his head to look at Leonard while he spoke, because unlike him, Jim wasn’t a coward, “Fuck you.”

He left the room without another word. Leonard wanted to throw his desk across the room, he wanted to break the glass of his windows and punch the walls until his knuckles bled. He wanted to scream at himself for always, always pushing away every good thing in his life. He wanted to cry. 

There was another knock on his door. One of the nurses walked in, and he remembered he had scheduled a meeting. He tried to compose himself, smiled as best as he could, invited the nurse to sit down. 

The words he’d said to Jim became a constant ache, an open wound he gave himself. 

 

***

 

_ This is a bad idea _ , Leonard thought. He shoved his hands in his pockets, felt dumb at the bottom of the library steps.  _ This is a bad idea.  _

It had been almost a week since Jim came to Leonard’s office. The two of them hadn’t spoken to each other, obviously. Leonard hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that morning. The conversation replayed in his mind, keeping him awake at night as he tried (and failed) to sleep on his tiny office couch. 

He reminded himself that he was an adult, that this is what adults do when they fuck up. 

Jim was an adult, too. A nice, well-adjusted, wickedly smart adult who deserved to have people in his life that were much better than Leonard. Jim didn’t need to forgive him, or even talk to him, but Leonard needed to apologize. If he was going to lose everything decent in his life, he may as well put up a fight. 

_ This is a bad idea. _

Leonard walked up the steps and into the library. 

Christine was working behind the front desk. She smiled and waved at him, motioned for him to come closer so they could talk in library-voices. 

“How are you? It’s been awhile since I’ve seen you in here.” 

_ She doesn’t know _ , Leonard thought,  _ Jim hasn’t told her anything, has he _ .

“I’m alright.” He lied. Christine raised an eyebrow but otherwise let it slide.

“Are you looking for Jim?” She asked.

“Uh, yeah, actually.”

Leonard hoped to god that Jim wasn’t on shift. 

“His shift is about to end, but he should be somewhere in here shelving returns before then. My best guess is the second floor.”

_ Shit _ .

“Thanks.” Leonard nodded at her. 

“It was nice seeing you, Leonard.” She said as he started to walk away. 

“You too.” He mumbled, giving her an empty smile. 

Leonard was wandering the second floor for a few minutes, slowly to try and calm his nerves. He wove in and out of shelves, passing quiet readers sitting in corners and next to power outlets, before catching a glimpse of Jim pushing a cart of books around the corner and into an aisle. He followed, relieved that the aisle they both walked into was empty. 

“Jim.” He whispered. Jim turned around, slowly, as if the sound of his voice still rang with reminders of the shitty things he’d said a week ago. He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, and Leonard watched as his eyelashes rested on the dark circles under his eyes, felt his stomach drop, because maybe Jim hadn’t been sleeping, either.

“Can I help you find a book?” Jim deadpanned. 

“Jim, I’m sorry.”

Jim didn’t look at him in disbelief; he looked at him in exhaustion.

“I’m sorry.” Leonard said again, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say. “I’m sorry.”

Jim’s mouth curved into a small, reluctant smile. 

“I appreciate that you apologized this time, but I can’t keep doing this.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I was just so angry-”

“You don’t have to explain yourself.”

“I don’t want to lose you.” Leonard said, speaking faster and faster as if his time was running out, “I’ve lost everything. I don’t want to lose you too.”

In a second, the entire atmosphere changed between them. Leonard started to wish he could take those words back as much as the others, because now Jim  _ knew.  _ Jim knew how fucked up Leonard was, how he made everything in his life a mess, and now he knew that Leonard wanted, needed him to be a part of the clusterfuck that was his life. Suddenly Leonard wished he had just left their friendship broken. 

“Leonard…”

“Don’t,” He held up his hand, “don’t say anything, please. I shouldn’t have said it like that, right now, after everything else I’ve done.” 

Jim’s eyes, his face, his entire being was warming up against the cold that had grown between them. He nodded. Leonard wasn’t ready, he could tell Jim knew. 

“I’m seeing another apartment tonight.” Leonard offered,  “I thought you might want to go with me. Seems like the kind of boring shit you would be into.”

Jim smiled, a real smile this time, and it made Leonard’s entire body feel lighter. He went back to being serious after that.

“My shift ends in ten minutes. I’ll come with you if you buy dinner.”

“Sure.” At this point Leonard would agree to everything.

“And if you stop lying to my face.”

He raised an eyebrow at that. Jim crossed his arms over his chest and continued. 

“You don’t have to talk about your feelings, just, jesus christ, I know you’re not fine. Stop telling me you are.”

Leonard nodded dumbly, because Jim was right, Jim was right all the fucking time, and he wasn’t even asking that much of him, but in a turnaround way, he still accepted Leonard’s apology. It still wasn’t normal between the two of them, it probably wouldn’t be for a while, but it was something. 

“I’ll meet you outside.” Jim said, and Leonard nodded again and walked away. 

It was something. 

 

***

 

Apartment tours became their new routine for a little while. They would meet up after work and have dinner and then walk through prospective apartments until the realtor got fed up with them. Leonard hadn’t warned Jim that he was extremely picky in almost everything, but especially in choosing where to live. Jim spent their tours coming up with every reason why Leonard should buy the apartment, while Leonard was, on instinct, doing the opposite. 

They had been doing this almost every night for about a week and a half and slowly warming back up to each other again in the process. Jim had loosened up around him, finally. He started acting like his usual self, annoyingly talkative and stupidly upbeat, and in some twisted way it helped Leonard to relax. 

Leonard still didn’t want to talk about it, everything that happened. He had been gradually and methodically sorting through and internalizing it all until it became easier to focus on work. He told himself that it would be fine. That _ he _ would be fine.

The realtor, who had just happened to have shown Leonard more than one apartment in the past week, was standing impatiently in the kitchen while Jim and Leonard talked outside on the balcony. 

“You should get this one. It’s the best we’ve looked at so far.” Jim leaned his side against the balcony rail, facing Leonard as he looked out onto downtown Atlanta. It was nice. Noisy, but nice. Leonard could probably get used to this view.

“You say that about every damn apartment we look at.”

“Okay but I mean it this time.” He stepped closer so Leonard could hear him better, “There’s the balcony, and hardwood floors, and the shower is… well it’s a shower.”

“You probably shouldn’t have brought up the doll-sized shower in your pitch.” Leonard said, looking at him sideways. The sun was almost through setting; Leonard could see it shining in Jim’s eyes and highlighting his face. 

“Yeah, I know.”

“I like everything else, though.”

“It’s just a shower, after all.” Jim said airily. 

“Hardly big enough for one person.”

“I bet two people could fit in there, if they knew what they were doing.” 

Leonard almost didn’t catch it. 

“I didn’t know you were twelve years old, Jim.”

“I’ve been told I look very mature for my age.” He said, grinning at him with abandon. It made something in Leonard’s chest feel tight. 

“Remind me to never buy you alcohol again.”

The realtor slid the door open right as Jim let out a fake gasp. She tapped her pen against her clipboard absently and walked out to join them. 

“Have you made a decision yet, Mr. McCoy?”

Leonard thought for a minute. He looked at the view, looked at the light across Jim’s face again as Jim smiled and shrugged. 

“Yeah. I’ll take it.”

Jim whooped. Their realtor looked tempted to do the same.

 

***

 

The two of them gave up halfway into assembling Leonard’s new IKEA furniture set. They sat in front of a possibly-incorrectly-put-together coffee table, Jim might have called it a Hemnes, and drank half chilled beer and watched the sky through the balcony doors (because Leonard still hadn’t bought a TV). 

“You know what’s the worst part,” Leonard said, because he was buzzed and he couldn’t remember whatever reasons he’d had to stop him from complaining about his divorce to Jim. “The worst part is that Jocelyn isn’t even a bad mom.”

“Come on.” Jim groaned, “How can she be a bad wife and a good mom at the same time that just doesn’t add up.”

“She wasn’t a bad wife, either.”

“That’s not what you told me.”

“I haven’t told you jack shit.” Leonard leaned his head backwards onto the couch--which, thank god, was no assembly required--and shut his eyes.

“I was making an educated guess. Mostly based on the fact that she fucked you over with the custody. I mean, who does that?”

“A woman who cares about her daughter and knows that her shitty husband would be a shitty influence.”

“I’m sure you were a great father.” Jim said, suddenly sounding very sober.

“I was alright. I work too much. I drink when I’m sad. Work makes me sad. You do the math.”

“Do you love your daughter?”

Leonard stared at the ceiling, blinking away the tears that always seemed to show up when he thought about Joanna.

“More than I’ve loved anything.” He said thickly. He reached around for the table to put down his beer and felt Jim take it out of his hand and set it down for him. 

“Then you probably would have done fine.”

“ _ Would have. _ ” Leonard muttered, “Because I’ll never know now, will I?”

“No. You won’t.” Jim said matter-of-factly. 

“Isn’t this where you give me an encouraging pep talk?”

“Pep talks don’t do shit when the situation is out of your control.”

Leonard grunted in agreement. He turned his head on the couch cushion to look at Jim, who was curled up with his knees to his chest, one arm slung over the side of the couch. He looked like an image from one of those 1980s New York photography books, wearing his blue jeans and a faded tank top. Leonard wanted to ask about the tattoos. He wanted to ask himself why he kept looking at them, even though it was never something he’d been interested in before. Something about them on Jim, the way the ink scrawled across his upper arms and onto his shoulders, organic and yet geometric and definitely something that took multiple appointments and a lot of fucking pain. 

He hadn’t realized he had been staring at Jim for a few minutes. He must have looked pretty pathetic, almost crying and craning his neck just to rest his head on the couch. Jim met his eyes and the tension held in his gaze made Leonard look away a second later. 

It was almost as if Leonard wasn’t used to any degree of intimacy with other people. He was. Or at least, he had thought so. He had dated a handful of men and women before Jocelyn, all of which varied in how they connected with each other, be it emotionally, or just physically, or some combination. With Jim it was something entirely new, and they weren’t even together. Just being  _ friends _ with someone like Jim was intimate, in a way that was neither emotional nor physical, but something entirely other. 

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” Jim said gently. He had broken away from his kick of trying to blatantly give Leonard emotional support, but it still came out sometimes. Leonard couldn’t really fault him for it, because he was probably still a lot to deal with. 

“About what?”

“About everything.”

Leonard sighed. He wanted to say  _ I don’t know either _ but it wouldn’t have been very constructive. 

“Say you’ll make me dinner.”

He could tell that Jim had started grinning like a maniac. He couldn’t see it, but he could tell. 

“I am a  _ fantastic  _ cook, I promise. They had vocational training in the prison I was sent to, don’t jump to conclusions, they actually taught a culinary program. Like a real one.”

Jim’s voice sounded casual, excited like he was retelling a story from his life, but Leonard knew it was more than just that. He turned his head again, trying to keep his face neutral so Jim didn’t freak out. Jim still watched his reaction nervously like he was about to freak out. 

“Um, did you get groceries?”

“Yeah, last night. I don’t have a lot of cooking equipment, but knock yourself out.”

Leonard probably felt as relieved as Jim did, who jumped up excitedly and padded to the kitchen. It might have been poor judgement to send Jim into his kitchen alone, considering Leonard still had no idea of his alcohol tolerance, but he seemed all too excited to try and reel back in now. Leonard waited a minute before pulling his body out of the slump he’d been in. He stood up and stretched. 

“Kitchen’s all yours. I’m gonna take a shower.”

“Okay.” Jim called from inside the pantry. 

Leonard stood in the shower for an embarrassing amount of time, thinking about Jim and thinking about  _ why  _ he was always thinking about Jim. He came to the conclusion underneath the hot water that he did not need to try and be in a relationship now, that that was the opposite of what he needed, that Jim would have to be a goddamn fool to still be attracted to him at this point. 

He needed to calm the fuck down was what he needed to do. 

Jim hadn’t yelled that dinner was ready or anything when he got out of the shower so he stood in front of the mirror and stared at his reflection while the steam cleared. He wondered if Jim had been serious that time weeks earlier when he said  _ I think you’re pretty cute _ and Leonard had said  _ fuck you _ . 

Even if it was serious then, everything was probably different now. 

Leonard went ahead and shaved, because it had been awhile. He poked at the dark circles under his eyes, which would hopefully start to fade after a few nights sleeping on the real mattress he’d just bought. 

The air outside of the bathroom was swirling with the smell of meat and spices and Leonard almost couldn’t get dressed fast enough. He hopped into the nearest pair of blue jeans--his routine in the morning had turned into a mess of sifting through his clothes boxes and throwing things around--and pulled on an Ole Miss t-shirt. 

“It’s almost done.” Jim said when Leonard walked out of the bedroom. He was leaning over Leonard’s one pot, and every available surface in the kitchen was covered with a majority of the groceries he’d bought the night before. He’d probably have to shop in bigger portions if Jim always cooked like this. 

Not that Jim would always be cooking in Leonard’s apartment. That would be a wild assumption to make. They weren’t dating or anything. _ I need to calm the hell down _ . 

Leonard went and opened the sliding door to the balcony to let the air circulate before it got too stuffy. He stepped outside into the cool evening. 

He couldn’t have guessed how much time passed while he was standing against the balcony rail, watching the uneventful night sky and trying hard not to think about Joanna in a way that would make him sad again. Suddenly Jim was next to him. 

“Dinner’s ready. I made us chili, kind of.”

“Why do you say kind of?” Leonard looked at him sideways, at the light from the apartment pouring across half of his face, highlighting a cheekbone, an eyebrow, the smooth line of his jaw.  _ God damn it _ .

“You don’t have corn.”

He scoffed. 

“Nobody likes corn.”

“It’s a good thing you aren’t in Iowa because that right there was the definition of blasphemy.”

Both of them laughed a little bit even though it wasn’t really funny. Leonard stood there expecting to go inside, because he was fucking hungry and what the _ hell _ were they still doing out here, until he met Jim’s nervous gaze and realized that this is the situation you get into right before you kiss someone. 

“Well are we going to eat or not, Mr. Five Star Chef?” Leonard asked, his words cutting uninvited through the air. Jim almost looked disappointed and relieved at once, if that was even possible. 

“Yeah, sure.” 

They walked back inside and served themselves chili, which, maybe it was situational, but Leonard was sure it was the most incredible smelling food he’d ever come across. He shuffled around in a box for a second spoon and they sat on the kitchen floor to eat dinner, since there was no way in hell that Leonard was going to touch another IKEA assembly manual before he’d had twelve hours of sleep and two cups of coffee. 

“This is incredible.” Leonard said, mouth half full. He was probably eating at an unhealthy speed, but Jim just watched him in amusement as he sat a few feet away and ate like a real person. 

“Well, it’s not the best I’ve made.” Jim said, and Leonard could tell from his tone of voice that he was about to say something idiotic, “It could’ve had corn in it.”

“Don’t make me ban you from this kitchen.” Leonard said flatly. Jim just smiled and kept eating. 

They stayed on the floor for a while after, because Leonard made the mistake of asking Jim how his database program was going, and then the boy was gone, talking so excitedly that he hit his hand against the cupboard at one point. Leonard just sat and listened, archived it in his mind for later that he could probably bring up programming to reroute a conversation at literally any point. 

Jim had stopped talking. 

“Oh. Did you ask me something?”

“No.” Jim slid the bowls away from their feet as if he was going to stand up, but he didn’t. “Did you only ask me about the program to distract me, because I know you were zoning out.”

Leonard smiled like a man who knew he was about to do something stupid. Hell, he was still just a tiny bit drunk from earlier, he could always blame it on that. 

“I really just asked you so I could watch you talk about it.”

The room was silent for a minute, save for the wind gently shaking the screen door and the sound of the street outside. Leonard saw the corner of Jim’s mouth twitching up. In a moment he was sliding forward on his knees, closing the gap between the two of them. 

“Is this okay. Can we do this.” He asked quietly, so close that Leonard wished he would just get on with it already and kiss him like he wanted to on the balcony earlier, and probably, he realized, a million moments before then. Leonard brought a hand up to Jim’s face, and he couldn’t remember touching Jim before this, not intentionally. 

He ran the pad of his thumb across a cheekbone, thinking, for some reason, very methodically about the planes of his face. He was probably at least half-Irish. 

Jim sat patiently while Leonard studied him, leaned into his hand only a little, like he was worried Leonard would stop. Leonard held Jim’s face in his hands so naturally it was as if they’d been doing this all along. He felt the warmth coming off his skin, kept them there even as Jim moved closer, slowly, pushing him against the cupboard and  straddling his legs in one fluid motion. 

“How long has it been.” Jim asked, snaking his hands upward to hold onto Leonard’s wrists as he continued to cradle his face. 

“I didn’t know it then,” Leonard whispered, because he felt like he had to, “But probably the night you forced me to have dinner with you.”

Jim smiled, but he didn’t kiss him, not yet. Leonard was dying for it. 

“Ask me.”

“Fine,” Leonard slid his hands down, around his neck, settled on the planes between neck and shoulders. His skin was so warm, just like he was. Leonard was tempted to stand up and dig out his thermometer and make sure he didn’t have a 103 fever. 

“How long?” He asked finally. 

Jim pulled Leonard’s hands off of his shoulders, guided them down to his waist. 

“I wanna say since day one.” 

“I don’t believe it.” 

“I fall for people easy.” He said simply, like it was normal.

“Even if that’s true, I was a nightmare.”

“You were  _ then _ .”

“And look at me now,” Leonard smiled, “still a nightmare.”

“Stop that. I don’t like it when you do that.” 

“What  _ do _ you like?” He asked. 

“Well,” Jim moved Leonard’s hands again, slid them underneath his shirt without warning and it almost made Leonard jump. He rested his own hands on Leonard’s shoulders, “I like that you shaved for me.”

Leonard floundered for a moment, tempted to say  _ like hell I did _ but he had a feeling he said that too often for it to be acceptable. 

“I know you did, even if  _ you _ don’t.” 

“Whatever.”

“I also like the way you look at me without realizing you’re doing it. You always get really awkward about it but you don’t have to.”

Leonard could feel his face getting warm, from embarrassment almost more than from arousal. 

“You can look. Whenever you want. It makes me feel pretty.”

Leonard snorted. 

“You _ are _ very pretty, after all.”

Jim smiled, leaned in closer and finally,  _ finally _ pressed their lips together. It wasn’t until it was actually happening that Leonard realized how damn long he’d been waiting to touch Jim like this, to hold him in his arms, to finally feel his stupid soft lips against his own. Jim pulled away slowly, kissed the corner of Leonard’s mouth before sitting up a little bit again. Leonard wanted to whine. 

“What do you like?” Jim asked. 

“I liked that. What we were doing just now.”

“No, stupid. What do you like about  _ me _ .”

Leonard raised an eyebrow.

“Feed my ego.” Jim grinned, and the only thing Leonard wanted to do was kiss him again. 

“I like…” Leonard thought about it for a moment. His hands were still glued to the same spot on Jim’s waist. It had been so long since he’d done anything like this, he almost forgot what he was doing. He slipped one hand further up Jim’s shirt, glided it around to rest on his back. His skin was enviably soft. Everything about this man was enviable. 

“I like how you smile at me all the time. I guess.”

Jim bit his lip, and Leonard paused, because  _ was he unaware of this _ ?

“I do?”

“All the fucking time. It’s annoying.”

“I thought you said you liked it.” 

Jim kissed him again, briefly, like he was rising above water to catch his breath before diving back down again.

“Yeah. It’s annoying how I like it.”

He leaned forward and kissed the corner of Jim’s mouth, the spot above his upper lip. When he pulled back Jim was smiling. 

“Just like that.” 

Jim moved to kiss him again, and again, each one getting longer and deeper than the last. Leonard figured he may as well give up alcohol if he could just do this instead, because Jim’s lips, his words alone were driving him crazy. He bit into Jim’s lower lip, just a little bit, and then harder until he whined and held tightly onto Leonard’s shoulders, rolled his hips forward into his lap. Leonard broke the kiss then.

“I like these.” Leonard said, his voice low and breathy. He’d drawn an arm up to trace the ink on Jim’s left bicep. His fingers went up and down, following the swirls and shapes and lines. 

Jim looked up at him, rosy cheeks and wide pupils. Leonard worried that he’s said the wrong thing, that he shouldn’t have brought them up right away, but then Jim raised his arms over his head, and invitation for Leonard to take his shirt off. 

He went slowly, sliding his fingers under the hem and lifting the cotton gently to let it drag across his skin. He tossed it across the floor. 

His tank top hadn’t left much to the imagination in the first place, but taking it off revealed the tattoos that went on just past his shoulders, revealed that Jim was the kind of person who blushed from his face all the way to his stomach. Leonard leaned forward, placed a kiss on the intricate design of one shoulder. 

“I got them when I was a stupid teenager.” Jim said quietly, “Cost me a fortune. I was so stupid.”

He kissed a line inward, over his collarbone, watched as Jim’s skin managed to grow even more red. Jim ran his fingers through Leonard’s still-damp hair, tugging a little bit at the nape of his neck. Leonard hummed. 

“They weren’t a complete mistake, though. They helped me in, uh, this sounds ridiculous, but they kinda gave me street cred.”

Leonard laughed against Jim’s skin. 

“I like them.” He said again.

Jim’s eyes were bright like stars as Leonard sat up to kiss him. For all his sunshine qualities, though, it turned out that Jim could kiss like the devil if he wanted. He pressed up against Leonard, trapping his body between the cupboard and his own. Leonard could hardly breathe as Jim worked his mouth open, sucked on the tip of his tongue until it shot sparks down his body. 

“You know,” Leonard said when they broke apart for air, “I have a bed now.”

“I know.” Jim was panting, and fuck if his voice wasn’t the most arousing thing Leonard had ever heard, “I helped you assemble it. Svelvik.”

“Well, if this is happening, it’s not happening on my kitchen floor.” He replied, even though he continued to run his hands over Jim’s chest like he didn’t plan on leaving anytime soon. 

“Let’s hit the svelvik, then.”

“I’m never taking you to IKEA ever again.” Leonard patted Jim’s thigh to signal for him to get up, and then Jim grabbed his arm to pull him from the floor. Jim didn’t let go of his hand while they walked, because of course he fucking didn’t, and Leonard stopped him more than once during the short distance between the kitchen and the bedroom just to kiss him again.  _ Good fucking job calming down _ , he thought to himself, pressing Jim against the wall next to his bedroom door, because at this point there was no way in hell he was going to stop whatever he was doing, whatever he was feeling, not after tonight. 

They finally made it inside Leonard’s bedroom, Jim walking backwards because the two of them really saw no point in  _ not _ touching each other. He almost tripped over a box of clothes and Leonard steered him the rest of the way and pushed him down onto the bed. He pulled one knee onto the mattress, leaned down to kiss Jim again, and then undid his fly and pulled jeans and boxers down at once. 

_ You can look. Whenever you want.  _ Leonard stood up, watched Jim’s face as he shifted on the bed, stared back at Leonard. He swept his gaze down Jim’s body, which was surprisingly muscular for a god damn librarian, followed the trail of dark blond hair down to his cock as he laid there, unapologetically hard and wanting Leonard for more reasons than Leonard would be able to fucking think of. 

He couldn’t take it any longer and he climbed on the bed, planted his knees on either side of Jim’s hips and leaned down to kiss him again. 

“Tell me I’m pretty.” Jim whispered.

“Shut up. You’re pretty.” 

Leonard pressed their mouths together sweetly, somehow managing to hold himself back. Jim slid his hands up the back of his shirt, wrapped his arms around Leonard’s back and tried to pull him closer. 

“Why are you still fully clothed.” Jim said flatly, half into Leonard’s mouth. 

He grunted noncommittally and kissed along Jim’s jawline. 

“This is a serious issue. You are fully. Clothed.” He whined, although clearly it wasn’t a huge problem because he continued to lie there and let Leonard trail kisses down his neck. 

“You talk too much.”

He slid down Jim’s body, ran his hands up and down his thighs until he felt goosebumps forming. 

“Honestly if I knew this was going to be a whole ordeal with you--you know, you should really give warnings about this kind of thing, put it on your facebook profile that you’re obsessed with foreplay, I was ready to get off like ten minutes ag--jesus christ.” He finally shut up once Leonard had taken his cock into his mouth, hollowed his cheeks until Jim was grabbing at the duvet. Leonard thought about dragging this out longer, just like everything else, but his own erection had gone ignored in his jeans for what felt like a billion years and he wouldn’t have been able to really enjoy making Jim suffer. He decided to save that kind of thing for later. 

Jim gasped, curling his fists into the sheets while Leonard bobbed his head up and down, tried to remember how to give blowjobs after six years of being married to a woman. Judging by Jim’s reaction he was doing just fine. He planted his hands on the sharp bones of Jim’s hips and held him down and sped up until his jaw started to get sore. 

“Jesus christ.” Jim said again, and Leonard looked up to see him arching his back against the mattress, covering his face with his hands. Leonard let half of his cock slide out of his mouth, closed his lips around the head and sucked. Jim came about a second later, screwing his eyes shut and going completely silent, coming back down on a shuddering breath. He swallowed it all and rested his head on Jim’s thigh. 

After a minute of just the two of them breathing, Jim’s hand reached around and found Leonard’s face. He traced the line of his jaw, cupped his cheek and, Leonard assumed, was trying to pull his head up. 

“Leonard. Len. Bones.” Jim whined. 

“What.” Leonard mumbled, tired enough that he would be just fine with going to sleep against Jim’s leg. Apparently Jim wasn’t having that. He slid his hand back into Leonard’s hair and pulled on it. 

“Take off your fucking clothes I swear to god.”

He pulled again, and okay, Leonard was still pretty hard. 

“Sit up. Right now.” Jim was being surprisingly coherent even though his voice sounded like he was half asleep. Leonard complied, sat up on his knees on either side of Jim’s legs. Jim tugged at the hem of his shirt. 

“Take it off.”

“You’re so whiny.” Leonard laughed. Jim glared at him. 

“I’m about to fall asleep but you haven’t had an orgasm because you’re actually the worst person in the world and you wouldn’t let me give you one so  _ hurry up _ and take it off.”

He pulled his shirt off and went ahead and stood up to step out of his jeans. Jim raised his eyebrows. It was a little awkward like this, with Leonard standing on the mattress and Jim lying down and practically asleep below him. 

“Did you not put on underwear?” Jim asked.

“Didn’t think you were going to stick around long enough to figure that out.” 

Jim snorted, trying to push himself up until he was sitting against the rails of the headboard. Leonard sat down to join him, and this time it was him sitting with his legs straddled over Jim’s lap, a more comfortable repeat of the kitchen. 

“C’mere.” He pulled Leonard forward with a hand on the back of his neck, Leonard leaned in, kissed him slowly. The feeling of Jim’s skin against his own made him wish he’d taken his clothes off much earlier. Jim deepened the kiss and reached down to stroke him at the same lazy pace. 

“You’re gonna have to give me a little more than that, darlin’.” Leonard sighed as Jim moved down to bite at his neck. Jim huffed. He sucked at he pulse point of Leonard’s neck, pressed their chests together and sped up his hand on Leonard’s cock. 

“This better?” Jim asked, wrapping his free arm around Leonard’s shoulders in a surprisingly tender gesture. Leonard closed his eyes. 

“Yeah.” He breathed. Jim kissed his collarbone and rested his head against Leonard’s shoulder, holding on as Leonard’s breathing got heavy. Leonard’s hands were tight around Jim’s waist, and they were probably starting to hurt at this point, but Jim only focused on him, mouth curving into a smile against his skin. 

Leonard finally came with a low moan and Jim stroked him through it. He sat up and kissed Leonard briefly. 

“Let’s sleep now.”

“I’m gonna go clean up real quick. You can sleep.”

Jim whined and leaned back against the headboard, but he let go of Leonard so he could go. 

Leonard cleaned himself off in the bathroom, brushed his teeth since he was in there. He stared at his tiny shower. Jim may have been right. The two of them could probably fit inside, maybe if Leonard could press Jim against the wall. He would have just enough room to move, to fuck into him from behind while the steam of the shower swirled around their bodies. It wasn’t a bad idea. 

He exited the bathroom, ready to tell Jim he was probably right about his stupid shower quip, but Jim was sitting under the covers and watching him solemnly.

“What is it?”

“I forgot to tell you.” Jim said. 

Leonard switched off the lights and stood over the bed. 

“Well are you gonna tell me what it is now or are you just gonna sit there and stress me out?”

Jim lifted the duvet to let him in. 

“You can sue for visitation.”

It took Leonard a second to process what Jim was talking about. Joanna, Jim was talking about Joanna. Leonard climbed into bed, sighed quietly.

“I already told you-”

“You can. I was reading about it, and I called a family law office, and you can do it. You can start going to AA, and you can get your six month chip, and then you can get a good lawyer and shorten your hours to get weekends off and you can buy a pullout couch-”

“Jim. It’s okay.” Leonard lowered his head onto the pillow and pulled at Jim until he was lying down too. They faced each other, barely seeing in the dark, but Jim’s face looked notably worried.

“No, it’s not okay. You need to see her.”

“I do, but there’s no way it would work.” 

Jim huffed, continuing to stare him down. Leonard closed his eyes and suppressed a groan.

“If I tell you I’ll do it will you go to sleep.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll do it.”

“Good. You’ll thank me for it.” Jim rolled over and scooted backwards against Leonard’s chest. He pulled his arm to rest over his side. Leonard smiled, too tired to argue about his hopeless custody case now. 

“Like hell I will.”

 

***

 

EPILOGUE

 

Leonard stood at the window, smiling so much his cheeks would probably hurt for the rest of the night. 

Joanna, almost a whole year older, was on the other side, dressed in a pink leotard and tights like the rest of the girls. He picked her up from dance class every Friday night now. He’d switched out his couch for a pull-out, kept kid’s shampoo in the shower and ice cream sandwiches in the freezer. Her drawings were on his fridge. Sometimes she left things at his apartment, a pair of shoes, a stuffed animal, one of her big flashy hairbows. Leonard always smiled when he saw them Monday morning, because he didn’t have to worry; she would be back the next weekend, and the one after that, for as many years as they wanted now. Thinking about it only added to the idiotic grin on his face. 

If he was being honest, Joanna was a pretty bad dancer. She hadn’t inherited Jocelyn’s gracefulness, her sense of rhythm and balance. She danced like Leonard, off-beat and off-balance and a little bit fidgety. None of that mattered, because she was smiling and Leonard was smiling and he would spend hours suspended in this moment if he could. 

She saw him through the window for a second and smiled bigger, held her chin up higher. 

They rode the bus back to Leonard’s apartment while Joanna told him a week’s worth of first grade gossip. She was seven years old, now, but it didn’t stop Leonard from giving in every time the bus stopped a block from his apartment and she sleepily asked him to carry her the rest of the way. He slung her polka dot backpack over his shoulders and lifted her onto his hip.

“Is Jim home tonight?” Joanna asked, holding her arms around Leonard’s neck as he started moving. Leonard chuckled, because it must have seemed obvious to Joanna that Leonard’s home was Jim’s home too. He was over often enough, to the point where Leonard had thought about whether or not they should just move in together. 

Joanna loved Jim from the beginning, so much that Leonard had to remind himself to not be jealous. The two of them had fun together, because Jim pretty much let Joanna do everything that Leonard had explicitly told him not to let her do, like staying up late or eating ice cream for dinner or anything else that seven year olds shouldn’t be making habits of. 

“Yeah.” Leonard finally said, pushing curls of blonde hair out of Joanna’s face, “Jim’s home.”

They rode up the elevator quietly, and Leonard noticed Joanna just barely dozing off with her head against his shoulder. He wished it would be like this every time, wished that Joanna would stay little and innocent and happy. He knew it wouldn’t, that things would inevitably change and she would go through stages of anger and insecurity and all of the other shit that happens when kids grow up, but at least now he would be there for that, every week from Friday night to Sunday night. He continued to play with the ends of her hair, reminded himself that he could cry in front of Jim later but he at least needed to not cry in front of his kid. 

Jim finally answered the damn door after he kicked it five times. 

“My hands are full.” Was his excuse. Jim just smiled and opened the door wider, ushering the two of them inside. Joanna blinked awake and lifted her head up, and then she saw Jim and immediately started fidgeting in Leonard’s arms. Leonard sighed and set her down, glared at Jim while Joanna ran over to him. Jim laughed, mouthed  _ sorry  _ and scooped Joanna up into his arms. 

Jim didn’t treat Joanna like most people treated children; he spoke with her as excitedly as he did with everyone else. Leonard listened to them chatting away, set Joanna’s backpack down on the couch and was on his way to hang up his jacket in the closet when he heard Jim whisper  _ for dinner _ and he knew exactly what kind of sneaky shit was going on.

“Don’t even think about it!” He barked, and both Jim and Joanna started giggling, and really, at that point there was no argument. 

 

Later that night, Joanna was already asleep on the pull-out, but only after she made Leonard read three different books. 

“See, that’s where you can tell that she loves you more.” Jim said quietly, turning over in bed to face Leonard, “She always wants you to read.”

“It’s only a matter of time before she starts asking you too, I bet.” Leonard traced the shape of Jim’s shoulder, feeling the warmth of his skin on his fingertips. If it weren’t so dark he would have been able to trace the patterns of his tattoos, which had become something of a mindless habit. 

“I don’t know,” Jim breathed, “you’re her father. I’m more like her fun uncle.”

“I’m gonna lose visitation of Joanna starts thinking her dad is fucking her uncle, Jim.”

“I’m her fun...father’s boyfriend.”

“Yeah.” Leonard kissed him quickly and settled back on his pillow. “That’s you.”

Jim tangled their legs together, scooted a little closer to sling an arm over Leonard’s waist. 

“Hey.” Leonard whispered.

“Hey.” Jim replied dumbly.

“Do you wanna move in? Joanna’s got it in her head that you already live here.”

“I kind of  _ do _ already live here.”

“Do you wanna  _ actually _ live here?”

Jim exhaled slowly and, it sounded like, theatrically.

“I don’t know, Len. The shower’s pretty small.”

Leonard breathed out a laugh, pulled Jim closer until they were inches apart.

“I think we can figure something out.”

 

_ end. _

**Author's Note:**

> the first part of jim's backstory can now be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6299719)


End file.
